On Tape

Rip It Up, Issue 118, 1 May 1987, Page 34

On Tape

Ballon D’Essai R 1 P (Failsafe) Ahh ... Ballon D’artwork — crazy cartoons, lots of em — memories ... This comes wrapped in a small poster thing, letting you know about the chaos contained within. This is a compilation well worth listening to, a bold experiment, maybe a bit dated but well-

recorded, and if Bauhaus hadn’t taken themselves so seriously, they could've been Ballon DEssai, and if Ballon D'Essai had been that famous. The timeless ‘Crash, Crash’ exercises in shrieking. Sadly lost — best tape buy this month. (From Failsafe, P O Box 3003, Christchurch) ;

Scallywag (Fingers) Boelee | Greg Boelee, leading Three Leaning Man, gives us this wholly self-indulgent, often quite neat, tape. Includes ‘A Poem of Boyish Dreams, all about the convicts drill, ‘Genesis Meets AC/DC; which sounds just like the Residents doing ‘Land of a Thousand Dances, horrible messy bits and nice acoustic bits, and a good fun info sheet. The next one, Songs for My Wife's Friends, sounds promising — 20 nasty toenail curlers on the subject of Scallywag's wife's friends! (From 3/18 Douglas St, Palmerston North) Henry the International Atlas Antidote

Sorry Henry, but | lost your tape a couple of times in house moves ... hever mind! Refound and reviewed: Nearly a full 90 minutes of slices of life with a surrealistic bent, tableaus played out on synthesiser, tape-recorder, etc ... Mournfully slow tapeloops — “| stand behind my husband, encourage him whenever | can” —

with sweeps of crackling noise. Occasionally awkward (‘Rabid),

but regretfully only occasionally funny (‘Compost). Where's yer humour, Henry? (From 6 Montague St, Lower Hutt) The Glass/Skank Attack Live The Glass, now-defunct, play tight'n'hard, sort of heart-warming rock and roll. They say this was recorded at their peak, live in mid-85, and they could be right — ain't bad. I think Skank Attack have some vinyl out now, probably worth checking out — this side’s an inferior recording though, from August last year. They play straight-ahead stuff, ‘ln Time/Out of Time’ and ‘The Knife Cuts’ being obvious hit-picks — the latter proving that if they wanted to, Skank Attack could make your ears bleed. Yum. (From 36 Miro St, Wellington) . Various , Suicide City

Hamilton’s fledging “underground” scene s represented by 13 ‘bands/individuals on Suicide City. Main problem though for these and the seven others credited as being “active in 1986” would seem to be the lack of viable venues. Recording quality too lags far behind the output of places like Gisborne, Palmerston North and New Plymouth. But it has enough interesting things on it — straight ahead garage grunge through

thrash and“industrial” (featuring prominently) to medieval chants — to make you wonder why they allwannadie ... oris it just another Doctors of Madness revival? ($7 from Suicide, 10 Michael Ave, Hamilton) Jungle Mice Jungle Mice don't deviate from their basic rock and roll/slightly rockabilly feel anywhere on this tape. Clear recording at the Cricketers by Mark Ingram, with Gerry Moran’s vocals and good playing standing out in the Jungle Mice’s fairly safe arrangements, limited by the three-piece format. It's all quite good, ‘Pervert Song’ being the closest they come to a truly inspired moment. ($8 from Real Groovy or 178 Tasman St, Wellington). ‘ Paul McKessar Hammerack Hard Rock Fever (Grunt) Emerging from Christchurch, Hammerack have released their debut recording on cassette only. Their songwriting is along very typical heavy metal lines, but for NZ standards is quite impressive, especially the guitaring from Jamie Dickson. Definitely a Kiwi rock band to look out for as they develop their own sound further. Write Grunt Records, P O Box 291,

Timaru. e

GD